Risk Perception, Perceived Government Coping Validity, and Individual Response in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic in China.

As a major crisis event, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy, threatened the lives of the public, and caused varying degrees of impact on the public. Previous studies have shown that risk perception and government response had different impacts on the public, but they revealed more about the independent impact of risk perception and government response on the public. This study will comprehensively consider the impacts of these two factors on the behavior of the public in the early stage of the epidemic. We analyzed data from an online survey in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and categorized individual behaviors into three dimensions: entertainment and travel, work, and the stockpile of supplies. In addition, we defined the risk perception variables by two dimensions: knowledge of the epidemic itself and knowledge of the consequences of the epidemic. At the same time, we used an exploratory factor analysis to construct the variable of perceived government coping validity and then adopted the ordinal logit model for analysis. The results showed that in terms of entertainment and travel, people would not be affected even if they fully understood the epidemic itself; once they were aware of the negative social consequences of the epidemic, people would suspend entertainment and travel to prevent the spread of the virus. As for work or employment, people would not stop working or employment even if they realized the infectivity and harmfulness of the disease and its social consequences. Furthermore, fear of COVID-19 and the perception of uncontrolled COVID-19 significantly positively affected people's material stockpiling behavior. These results indicate that different risk perceptions had different effects on individual responses, and individual behaviors reflected different coping logics. In addition, the government's effective response to the epidemic would significantly reduce the negative impacts of the epidemic on the three dimensions of people's responses. These conclusions have certain policy implications for preventing and responding to outbreaks in other countries.

Effect of Post-Activation Potentiation on Sprint Performance after Combined Electromyostimulation and Back Squats

Post-activation potentiation (PAP) is a phenomenon which can improve force performance executed after a previous conditioning activity. PAP is usually evoked through heavy resistance, but many new methods are being suggested that acutely improve performance in post-activation potentiation protocols. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of simultaneous application of Smith machine back squats (BS) with electromyostimulation (EMS) on sprint performance. Sixteen male (age = 22.9 ± 2.3 years, body mass = 79.9 ± 13.8 kg, BS one-repetition maximum (1 RM) = 120.5 ± 17.3) amateur football and rugby players volunteered for this study. Participants randomly performed PAP protocols (CON = no load, BS = 3 × 85% of 1 RM BS, EMS = 3 × weightless squat with electric current and BS + EMS = 3 × 85% 1 RM BS with electric current) on four different days with at least 48 h intervals. Participants rested passively for 7 min after preloads and performed the 30 m sprint test. Sprint times for 10 and 30 m were recorded for each condition. As a result, no significant difference was found in the 10 m (p = 0.13) and 30 m (p = 0.10) sprint performance between the preload protocols. The effect size was found to be trivial (ηp2: 0.13 for 10 m;ηp2: 0.11 for 30 m). In individual results, the 10 m sprint performance of five participants and 30 m sprint performance of two participants decreased in BS, EMS, or BS + EMS conditions compared with CON. No PAP effect in other participants was observed. In conclusion, preloads did not affect 10 m and 30 m sprint performance of football and rugby players. It can be said that the applied PAP protocols or physical exertion alone may cause fatigue in some individuals.

Bifurcation analysis of a SEIR epidemic system with governmental action and individual reaction.

In this paper, the dynamical behavior of a SEIR epidemic system that takes into account governmental action and individual reaction is investigated. The transmission rate takes into account the impact of governmental action modeled as a step function while the decreasing contacts among individuals responding to the severity of the pandemic is modeled as a decreasing exponential function. We show that the proposed model is capable of predicting Hopf bifurcation points for a wide range of physically realistic parameters for the COVID-19 disease. In this regard, the model predicts periodic behavior that emanates from one Hopf point. The model also predicts stable oscillations connecting two Hopf points. The effect of the different model parameters on the existence of such periodic behavior is numerically investigated. Useful diagrams are constructed that delineate the range of periodic behavior predicted by the model.

Effects of misinformation on COVID-19 individual responses and recommendations for resilience of disastrous consequences of misinformation.

The proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms is faster than the spread of Corona Virus Diseases (COVID-19) and it can generate hefty deleterious consequences on health amid a disaster like COVID-19. Drawing upon research on the stimulus-response theory (hypodermic needle theory) and the resilience theory, this study tested a conceptual framework considering general misinformation belief, conspiracy belief, and religious misinformation belief as the stimulus; and credibility evaluations as resilience strategy; and their effects on COVID-19 individual responses. Using a self-administered online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic, the study obtained 483 useable responses and after test, finds that all-inclusive, the propagation of misinformation on social media undermines the COVID-19 individual responses. Particularly, credibility evaluation of misinformation strongly predicts the COVID-19 individual responses with positive influences and religious misinformation beliefs as well as conspiracy beliefs and general misinformation beliefs come next and influence negatively. The findings and general recommendations will help the public, in general, to be cautious about misinformation, and the respective authority of a country, in particular, for initiating proper safety measures about disastrous misinformation to protect the public health from being exploited.